When you name a cryptocurrency Dogecoin in honor of a dog meme originated by Internet comedy pioneers Homestar Runner, it's a hard thing to take seriously.

But Dogecoin, with its Shiba Inu/Comic Sans meme mascot, is a legit currency competitor to Bitcoin, even with its price fluctuations. So when a user posted on the Doges.org forums that Dogewallet (a coin storage service) was hacked, many were worried that their virtual investments were also lost.

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"Looks like somebody hacked and cleared my Dogewallet some minutes ago with a single transaction, I lost more than 1M!" a user named Theoz posted.

"I spent a various amount of time to get those Dogecoins," another user by the name of Doger33 posted. "How is this even happening? My Password is more than safe... What can we do about it?"

Dogewallet reacted quickly by shutting down its site, and its Facebook presence. It also posted on Reddit an update regarding the hack: "We're currently looking at logs and have found thousands of attempts to hack our systems. All invested user balances will be fully compensated."

Damage control also included spreading the word about getting refunds to affected users. "Refunding users is our priority because we too want to see Dogecoin grow, not only because it's backed by the best community of any digital currency, but because it also has the greatest potential to completely overtake and topple Bitcoin," Dogewallet told Techcrunch. "This is exemplified by the community reaching out to help create a system for refunding affected users of Dogewallet just moments after the incident."

Currently, each Dogecoin is worth around $0.000554, and with over 30 million coins missing, that's a decent chunk of change -- upwards of $16,000.

Some users are concerned the incident wasn't a hack but instead an elaborate scam. However for those who lost more than just faith in Dogewallet and Dogecoin, there is a fundraiser to help reimburse victims, proving in this Dogecoin-eat-Dogecoin world, there's still hope.

About the author

Crave freelancer Bonnie Burton is the best-selling author of "The Star Wars Craft Book" and host of the Web show "Geek DIY." When she's not writing or vlogging about sci-fi pop culture, robot fighters, and taco-delivery drones, she enjoys acting out Benedict Cumberbatch replicant fantasies with her Admiral Sackbar puppet. E-mail Bonnie.
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